About

In the civil jurisdiction Jim practices primarily in the areas of commercial law (including corporations law, trade practices and franchising), and construction law. Jim appears in trials and applications in the County Court, Supreme Court, Federal Court and VCAT.

Jim has over 15 years experience in the alternative dispute resolution and mediation of commercial and construction disputes.

Jim also has an extensive criminal law practice in which he appears as defence counsel, as well as prosecuting on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions and other authorities.

He has appeared in a large number of criminal trials and pleas in the County and Supreme Courts. These matters have included charges of drug trafficking, violence offences, property offences, dishonesty offences, extortion, blackmail, sexual offences, conspiracy, false imprisonment, firearms offences, arson, attempting to pervert the course of justice, perjury and offences relating to solicitors’ trust accounts.

He has also appeared at coronial inquests, and in civil and criminal appeals in the Court of Appeal.

In 2016, Jim appeared at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Because of his broad practice Jim has particular expertise in areas where the criminal and civil law intersect, such as white-collar crime and building and planning prosecutions.

Jim is a member of the Building Dispute Practitioners’ Society (www.bdps.com.au), the Commercial Bar Association, the Criminal Bar Association, and the New South Wales Bar Association.

He has mentored two readers, Martin Kozlowski and Stephen Chambers.

Jim is a Sessional Lecturer in Trial Practice and Advocacy at Monash Law School. He is an accredited advocacy coach with the Australian Advocacy Institute (www.advocacy.com.au) and regularly teaches advocacy at professional workshops and in the Victorian Bar Readers Course. He is also a mentor of postgraduate students in the Melbourne Law School Mentor Program at the University of Melbourne.From 27 Mar 2014, liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards legislation.